Women In The Qur'Ān

10.1163/ej.9789004174351.i-217.13

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Chapter Summary

This chapter examines three verses of Qurʾān concerned with women to provide background for the issues that came to the fore in legal discussions. One of the main difficulties with introducing material from the Qurʾān is that so much of it is open to diff erent interpretations that it is hard to "start" anywhere. The chapter provides a context for verses drawn from the Kitāb asbāb al-nuzūl compiled by Wāḥidī. The majority of the verses in the Qurʾān about marriage address the roles men play, as guardians of women or as potential grooms and husbands. Wāḥidī. says that a number of Qurʾān commentators report that among the Medinese, in pre-Islamic times and in the early period of Islam, when a woman's husband died, his son or another of the deceased's agnate relatives would throw a cloak over her and thereby claim a right to be her guardian.